Joel Manfredi
English 5870
Dr. Devries
Commentary #2
In “Composition from the Teacher-Research Point of View,” Ruth Ray seems to put a value on who is doing the research in classrooms as opposed to what research is being done. I believe her argument is that teacher-researchers have a different outlook on what they are researching because of their experiences in the classroom, and therefore can bring a more meaningful change to how we teach our students.
If we can eliminate the separation between teachers and researchers and make them one in the same, then teachers will be empowered with the knowledge that they gain. Ruth says, “teacher research is… an emancipation proclamation that results in new ownership–teachers’own research into their own problems that results in modification of their own behaviors and theories” (174). I taught freshman English for a year in Stockton and I know that when I had to teach something to my students that I wasn’t comfortable with, I had to study it for myself. I really believe that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and in regards to research in the classroom, what better way to become a good teacher than to research teaching. Better yet, I believe one should research teaching (if possible) in a school that carries the same demographics as the one where they plan to teach.
I know that some of the best advice I got in my first year of teaching came from the teachers that were at the school prior to my arrival. The information they gave me not just about the curriculum, but the nature of the students that we had was invaluable. This seems to be along the same lines of what Ray is talking about in her teacher-research model. That we can learn more from a fellow teachers’ research than from a university based, scientific approach.
This next part intrigued me because I found myself agreeing with Ray, but at the same time wondering how to effectively implement such strategies. Ray, when describing successful teacher researchers, says, “successful teacher research is usually conducted by an open-minded, inquiring teacher who sees the classroom as an egalitarian community in which he or she is but one of many learners” (175). I love the idea of this, but wonder, as I consider myself a new teacher, how one can do this while still maintaining control of the classroom. Would this method work with high school kids? And if so, would it only work with the higher levels of those kids? I was intrigued, curious, and excited about this type of research because it was inclusive.
Along the same thought, Ray quotes Peter Elbow who said, “We can increase the chances of our students being willing to undergo the necessary anxiety involved in change if they see we are also willing to undergo it” (175). The change elbow describes has to do with the willingness to become allies, not equals, in the research.
Ray goes on to describe studies where this type of collaborative research took place successfully. She describes one where Marilyn Cooper collaborates with her “first year English students.” I wonder if these students are freshman, or not? It seems to me that if done right, this type of research could be accomplished with any age range of student. It seems that it then becomes the teacher that needs to have the skills to keep the “redistribution of authority” intact.
I agree that this is an intriguing idea, and I have tried in my own classes to create this environment. I try to be a teacher-as-facilitator of discussion, critical thinking, and community learning/teaching. I don’t know how successful I have been in this endeavor, as I have never let go entirely to my authority in the classroom. Indeed, I am not sure it is even possible to create a classroom without teachers as Elbow describes, but we can create a classroom in which teachers are peers in the sense that everyone is learning, if not the same things, but at the same time. As Marilyn Cooper says, “differences among people are a resource, not something to be eliminated in the name of education, remediation, socialization.” It is our job as teachers not to fill minds with knowledge, but facilitate learning from whichever corner the information and knowledge comes from.